


Human Eyeballs, the Takoyaki Vendor, and the Not Really Dead Cat

by arboretum



Category: Wild Adapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-10
Updated: 2006-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:03:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arboretum/pseuds/arboretum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by arboretum</p>
<p>In which Tokitoh eats takoyaki, Kubota buys curtains, and someone names a cat Trash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human Eyeballs, the Takoyaki Vendor, and the Not Really Dead Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to karmic_circuit, whom I coerced into betaing mostly by being loud and annoying, and I really hope this fic at least somewhat answers your prompt, Harukami. :X
> 
> Written for Harukami

 

 

The takoyaki vendor's name is Hatake Yuuko.  She wears boots with the fur set inexplicably on the outside and warm, hand-me down jackets in baby pink pastels; on cold days, she adds to this ensemble a set of fluffy white earmuffs, and Tokitoh likes to call her Yuu-chan.  He says this is because -chan suits Yuu-chan, whose cheeks are round and dimpled and who always has a smile for him.  (He's pretty sure she likes him, although he's yet to get this in writing or even, really, in speech; regardless, she smiles a lot at him, and that's probably what people liking you is supposed to be like.)  In actuality, Kubota says over a cold noodle lunch one day, "You just like adding -chan, don't you?  To anything?  Everything?"

"So what if I do?"

"Nothing," Kubota says.  "It just seems childish," he explains, placatingly, when Tokitoh glares at him.  The problem with Kubota is that even when he's making judgments, he doesn't seem judgmental.  He says, "It seems childish," the same way someone else would say, "It looks pink."  It hardly seems to matter to him; it's as though he's only pointing out the obvious.

"I'm not childish," Tokitoh denies anyway, hunching over his bowl of noodles and stabbing at them sulkily.  "I'm grown up.  I'm practically as tall as you, and I even have a wrinkle -- here, along the, uh, maybe the other side -- or, well, somewhere, anyway.  I just can't remember growing up, that's all."

Kubota smiles mildly.  "That's all right.  I remember growing up, but it wasn't anything especially worth remembering."

Tokitoh rolls his eyes.  "Yeah, tragic," he says.  "A boring, horrible childhood of being ignored and playing video games.  I would _love_ to have grown up playing video games all the time."

"It was all right," Kubota says.

"It was better than all right," Tokitoh grumbles.  "It made you the Jet Li of fighting games.  I freaking hate that.  Hey, I'm not done eating, yet!"

"Then eat, and don't talk," Kubota says, setting Tokitoh's bowl back down.  He begins running the sink, rinsing off his own utensils.

"You always try to take my stuff away before I'm done with it.  Do you seriously like doing dishes that much?"

"I don't mind it," Kubota tells him.  "I never had to do them before.  Anyway, I wouldn't do them all the time if you'd do them once in a while."

"I hate doing the dishes," Tokitoh mumbles guiltily.

"Like I said, I don't mind doing them."

After Kubota is done doing the dishes, they sit on the couch, which has matching butt-indentations from where they sit on it all the time, and Tokitoh gets his ass handed to him in Street Fighter while consuming the entire bag of candy he bought the other day.  Kubota leans back after his third straight victory and loops an arm easy around Tokitoh's shoulders and looks out the window at the pouring rain.  "It must be cold outside today," he says, working his fingers through Tokitoh's hair.

Tokitoh rolls his eyes.  "No, duh."

"Good thing we're indoors," Kubota says; he sounds happy for some reason.  The most absurd things make Kubota happy.

\----

Yuu-chan shows up mid-October one day as if out of nowhere, and then she just stays.  She works every other weekday, and after a while, Tokitoh gets so used to eating fresh-cooked takoyaki he just stops buying the frozen stuff altogether.

So if Kubota and Tokitoh are indoors playing a game of Soul Caliber and Tokitoh's stomach growls, the conversation can go basically one of three ways:

1\. Do you think the curry is still edible if it has fuzz on it? 2\. Maybe the seven-eleven will have new pocky today. 3\. It's too cold to go outside, Tokitoh.  Look at me, I'm like an old man.  If you want takoyaki, you get it yourself.

"Fine," Tokitoh always says, fake exasperated.  He slams the door behind him every time just because it feels good to hear it; the eerie, shocked silence right after is also fun, or, if he's lucky, a neighbor sticking her head out the window and yelling, "What the hell is wrong with you kids?" which means he gets to make a face at her and scamper away before she can start throwing stuff.

It's not like Tokitoh doesn't get cold or anything, but the run downtown is really pretty fun, and there's something about knowing that piping hot takoyaki is waiting for you at the other end that makes it all worthwhile.

Yuu-chan never really talks to him, but she smiles with dimpled, rosy cheeks and thanks him politely for his business in reply to all his nosy questions.

"I ask because I care, Yuu-chan," Tokitoh whines.  "Come on, don't you have a home to go to?  It's so cold out."

"I think it's pretty comfy," she says, smiling at him from her cocoon of jackets and scarves and fluffy earmuffs.  Her nose is running.

Tokitoh gives her the wad of tissue he has stuffed in the back pocket of his jeans ("No, no, it's clean, really.") and thanks her again, grudgingly giving up his interrogation.

When he gets back, Kubota is carefully dusting the shelves.  He looks up at the slam of the door shutting, smiles blandly at Tokitoh.  "Did you eat it all already?"

"I saved one for you," Tokitoh says, and generously hands it over.  It's soggy and cold, and there's probably some lint stuck on it from being in his jacket pocket, but it's the thought that counts, he always figures.  Tokitoh _always_ has good thoughts, except for like, those times when he doesn't.  He always has good thoughts for Kubota anyway.

Kubota eyes the squashy takoyaki as Tokitoh drops it in his palm.  "Mm," he says, and that's another thing Tokitoh loves about Kubota, is his apparent inability to sound sarcastic; he sounds as enthusiastic about squashy takoyaki as he does about fresh vanilla ice cream, which is so tasty and good.  "Thank you."

"No problem, Kubo-chan," Tokitoh says flippantly, as he peels off his damp layers and chucks them in the general direction of the laundry room.

\----

"You should try this one; I just got a shipment in from Shanghai," Kou says, merrily thrusting another canister of mysterious dried somethings under Tokitoh's nose.

"No," he says, making a face.  "How do I even know what it is?  You're probably trying to poison me."

Kou raises one elegant eyebrow at him, then dips into the jar with two fingers and pops one of the things into his mouth.  "Delicious," he says.

Kubota, who has no sense of self-preservation, takes one and eats it too.  "Kind of sweet," he pronounces, after chewing for a minute.  "You'd like it."

A recommendation from Kubota is tempting (except when he remembers sometimes that Kubota doesn't actually seem to have taste buds), but Tokitoh is strong-willed.  "Thanks, but no thanks," he grumbles, which is apparently the cue for small talk to end and business to begin.  The canister of whatevers (Tokitoh pokes at it gingerly with his gloved hand and watches a few of the wrinkly things roll around) is left forgotten on the cluttered countertop, and Kou and Kubota drift toward the back room while Kou begins ennumerating nonsensical things on a sheet of paper.

"Why do you guys talk in code to each _other_?" Tokitoh had asked once, and gotten two inscrutable stares in reply.

"What?"  he'd said.  "What, _me_?"

"Oh my god, come _on_.  Like I'd ever tell anyone you were a secret black-market arms dealer---mmm!"

Afterwards, his mouth stuffed full of chocolate and his hands tied to a chair (not like that made much difference to him, he'd pointed out while Kubota was fastening the pink plastic stuff; he'd managed to get a quirky smile for that comment, but he was still _tied up_ ), Tokitoh had muttered, "It's so obvious anyway."

The bell over the door rings while Kubota and Kou are commiserating over the hot water boiler in the back, so Tokitoh leaves the mystery imports alone and says, "Welcome to Kou's shop of totally bizarre and random shit, half of which is probably poisonous, how can I help you?"

Fifteen minutes later, Kou is steepling his fingers and making a constipated face that really doesn't suit him.  "You actually sold something?" he asks again.

Tokitoh shrugs.  He's kind of embarrassed.  This isn't supposed to happen on his watch.

"What was it?"

"I told him they were dried human eyeballs," he says sheepishly, gesturing at the counter-top where mystery import #1 no longer sits.  "For some reason he seemed to like that."

Kou turns suddenly serious.  "How much?"

Tokitoh tells him.

"Idiot, idiot, idiot," Kou mutters, humor dissipating into thin air.

"Oh, come on, I'll make it up to you."

"Forget it," Kou says, already turning back to his calculations.  "Away with you two miscreants.  And don't forget my packages."

Tokitoh tries to quip back -- he always likes getting in a last word -- but then Kubota's arm is slung tight across his windpipe and his hand is muffling Tokitoh's yelps of protest, and Tokitoh is getting dragged out of the store in the most undignified manner ever.

"Just pick me up by the scruff of the neck next time, why don't you," he grouses.

"You'd be too heavy," Kubota tells him, a good-natured smile playing about his face.

Tokitoh narrows his eyes at him but doesn't dignify that with a response.

\----

In the end, it's ironically not one of the gangs who kidnaps him for nefarious purposes but -- and he's not sure here -- the government?  A pharmaceutical company working for the government.  Rogue genetic engineers.  Oh, fuck if he knows.  Lab coat guys and girls; the stuff nightmares are made of.

It happens like this: Tokitoh goes tumbling down the hill for some takoyaki on Wednesday and is hassling Yuu-chan about getting a new jacket when she bursts into tears.

"Uh, what?" Tokitoh says, thrown suddenly off-balance.  Maybe, he thinks desperately, Yuu-chan has some incredible traumatic memory linked with the color green; he shouldn't have mentioned it!  Wait, but then, how does she ever handle spring?  Or summer?  Or the planet Earth at all?

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she wails, and Tokitoh panics and says, "It's okay!  I mean, sorry!"

He sees her do some weird combination of snot-faced smile and quivering pout just before she buries her face in her hands and moans, "You're too kind!  I'm so sorry!" which is _so weird_...

And that's about all he remembers right up to the point where he wakes up and it's all white and clean and lifeless and a well-dressed young woman in glasses is peering down at a notebook and making scratching noises with a pen.  "Oh," she says, looking up.  "You're awake."

"Where the fuck am I?" Tokitoh asks thickly.  It's his usual question for waking up in unfamiliar places.  Kubota had said, "My bed," which had been a little freaky.

"Well."  She smiles apologetically at him.  "There are actually two answers to that question."

And she proceeds to tell him both answers.  It really only takes about a minute.

"I'm _what_?" Tokitoh yells, and somehow manages to kick the bedside stand over and rip out an IV all at once.  "What the hell is this for?" he says, grabbing the tube and waving it hysterically at her; it looks even more insane clutched in his other hand, the one that's all the wrong size and shape, the one he usually doesn't look at and which has claws that are currently puncturing the tube.

"I'm sorry," he pants, after a minute.  "Did you say I was _dead_?"

"Well, in a legal sense," she says, patting out the wet spots on her skirt with a folded handkerchief.  "In reality, obviously, no.  Would you like to take a seat?  You should be feeling a bit dizzy from the sedatives we gave you."

"Oh," Tokitoh says, and faints.

\----

It's probably two whole weeks before Kubota comes for him.

"What the fuck took you so long?" he asks, smoothing down the sheets on his tiny hospital bed (they probably _stole_ it, he suddenly realizes... from a cancer patient?  From a dying child?  From a dying cancer patient's child?  He wouldn't put anything beyond these people; they put needles in him and made charts about it).  He's been twiddling his thumbs listening to the carnage for probably five minutes now, getting up only to make the bed to calm his nerves.  He's starting to think he doesn't actually really want to leave the room.  Something is moaning outside.  It sounds distinctly Resident Evil-ish.  Nobody can blame him for not wanting to see zombies, right?  If they could just knock a hole in the wall and jump out into the street, he'd never have to go down that hallway outside at all.

"I," Kubota says, then stops, as the heavy iron door of Tokitoh's room \-- more like cell -- slowly, slowly crawls shut with a sudden, unexpected boom.  Kubota doesn't even jump; he frowns though, looking down.

Tokitoh follows his gaze.  "Oh.  They took my glove," he says, giving the bed one last pat with the offending hand.  "Actually, you know," he adds, trying to sound casual as he eyes Kubota, "They didn't really do anything _too_ horrible to me."

"No?" says Kubota.  They both pause for a minute to listen to the guy moaning outside.

"Yeah, not too horrible.  Actually, they said I'm probably not going to explode, so that's probably good.  I might be a --" he pauses and looks both ways before saying quietly, "I might be, like, a source for the drug and not actually some sort of junkie?"

Kubota blinks at him, then smiles like he didn't hear a word of what Tokitoh just said.  "Okay," he says, wiping his pinky finger along the outside seam of his pants.  "So let's go home."

"So what _did_ take you so long?" Tokitoh asks again once they're out of the room.  He's gingerly stepping over someone he really isn't thinking about stepping over oh shit arm okay disentangled moving on.

"I thought you were dead," Kubota says, steadying him with a hand on his elbow.  They make it to the front door, and it's amazingly clear of any police at all.  Kubota gives him a strange look as they exit, like he can't quite figure something out; he hands over a lab coat he probably relieved some dead scientist of, and Tokitoh eyeballs him back while he wraps his hand with it.

"Well, aren't you glad I'm alive, then?" he asks, feeling kind of incredulous himself.  "Can I get like, a welcome back from the dead hug, or something?"  And then, before Kubota can answer, he adds, "Oh, hey.  Did you have a funeral for me while I was dead?"

Kubota just keeps looking at him like he's the most confusing thing ever.

\----

Home is almost exactly the same as when he left it, except for the addition of a fat, four-legged house guest.  Tokitoh has named the damn thing (Neko-chan, but he is changing that _right now_ ) and all before he finally gets it.

"Oh. My. Fucking. God," he says suddenly, spoon full of instant soup halfway to his mouth.

Kubota looks inquiring.

"Oh my fucking god, you fucking _asshole_!" he yells, and in one move, chucks his spoon, his bowl of soup, and the entire table at Kubota, who just barely sidesteps and after that, just looks at the mess with a sort of infuriatingly sad expression.

They had taken a taxi home, which had been interesting, Tokitoh curled up tight into Kubota's side and asking an endless stream of questions muffled into his chest: was it a fancy funeral?  Did you light incense?  Did you make sure not to invite that Chinese quack?  Wait, so you didn't even have a funeral?  What the hell did you do for two weeks?  Okay fine, but did you at least mourn?  How did you mourn?

The driver kept shooting wary looks back at them in the rear-view mirror.  He seemed happy to get away when they finally arrived at the apartment.

"I can't believe I let you _touch_ me," Tokitoh shouts, and kicks a lamp at Kubota, who sidesteps that, too, but doesn't try to defend himself.

"Oh my god," Tokitoh moans, clutching his face in his hands.  "I'm leaving."

"Where to?" Kubota asks.

"What do you care?"

"Your friend Hatake-san is dead," Kubota says.

"Yeah, I figured," Tokitoh says, and pointedly doesn't think about Yuu-chan standing in the rain at all.  "I don't know.  I'll figure something out.  Bye."

He slams the door on the way out, and the lady across the hall doesn't even bother screaming at him.  It's like nobody missed him at all.

\----

Kou is unremarkably unsympathetic.

"You should take a shower," he suggests, wrinkling his nose up and waving his dishrag worriedly at Tokitoh.  "If you want, you can come upstairs and use the bathroom --"

"Ew, no thanks, perv," Tokitoh says, shuddering and glaring at the same time.  "Seriously, are you listening to me at _all_?  He replaced me with a _cat_."

Kou shrugs.  "You were dead," he says, and makes it sound somehow philosophical.

"For _two weeks_ ," Tokitoh snaps.  "And also: a _cat_."

Kou levels a steely look at him over the rims of his glasses and pauses in the middle of polishing a teacup.  "Kubota-san picks up strays as a matter of habit," he says, and then, after a second, adds, with a sigh, "No, no, I don't mean -- don't look like that," and sets his work down to come around the counter and put a gingerly sympathetic hand on Tokitoh's shoulder.

Tokitoh has no idea when he started finding Kou's touch comforting (probably about a second ago), but he feels himself curl in and press up against Kou as he sits down.  The way Kou strokes his hair reminds him of Kubota -- whom he hates, by the way -- and it's something, anyway, to be held, even if the person doing the holding is an unlicensed doctor and eater of human body parts and quite possibly the devil, although Tokitoh has yet to collect physical proof of that one.

"So how many people," Kou asks him, his thin tenor trembling through Tokitoh's cheeks where he's pressed up against Kou's ribs, "did he kill to have you back?"

"I don't know," Tokitoh mumbles.

"You crazy children," Kou says, a smile in his voice.  "Worrying about you will be the death of me."

Tokitoh rolls his eyes then.  "I didn't see _you_ holding a funeral for me," he mutters.

"Metaphorically," Kou says, with an awkward pat on Tokitoh's arm.  "Or something like that.  Let me get up now, you great fat cat.  Unlike some people, I have work to do."

And the insult is probably just enough to get Tokitoh to leap away from him like he's been scalded and to go scurrying back home, which is probably what Kou intended all along.  Fucking quack, Tokitoh thinks angrily, stopping to stomp in every puddle he sees.

\----

The table is upright again, the dishes cleared away by the time he gets back.  Kubota is tying up a little plastic bag of trash when Tokitoh kicks the door open, and he turns to glance over his shoulder and smile benignly, like he wasn't worried at all.  "Welcome back," he says.

Now that he's looking, Tokitoh notices there are new curtains, too, bright and yellow and far too happy for Kubota to have picked out himself (though he must have; two weeks, cat, and cats aren't known for being great at shopping, after all).  The cat is sharpening its claws on them.  Tokitoh points at it.  "Gomi," he says decisively.

"Gomi?" Kubota asks, raising an eyebrow delicately, and that's the last word either of them say almost all night, except for, "Curry?" and "Yeah, fine."

After they eat, Tokitoh plays one-player mode on Street Fighter until Kubota has finished washing the dishes, then he kicks the other controller meaningfully while Kubota is walking by, which obviously means, come play with me.  Kubota does, and they sit button-mashing till the wee hours of the morning, by which time Tokitoh is too tired to keep himself from falling over on Kubota's shoulder, and too tired to do much of anything when Kubota loops an arm easy and familiar around him except to mutter, "I hate you."

"It's good you're alive," Kubota says.  He sounds grateful enough that Tokitoh does him a favor and doesn't kick the cat when it wanders within range five minutes later.

 

 


End file.
